


Questions

by ElizaHiggs



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Beginnings, F/M, Having the conversation, new relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 06:03:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14805741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizaHiggs/pseuds/ElizaHiggs
Summary: “Would you ever get married again?”He tosses the question her way with a nonchalance that conveys casual inquiry between friends—a mere curiosity—as though the question has not burned through his brain these past few weeks; as though her answer affects his own life not at all.





	Questions

**Author's Note:**

> Short and sweet today. 
> 
> I own none of these lovely characters.

“Would you ever get married again?”

He tosses the question her way with a nonchalance that conveys casual inquiry between friends—a mere curiosity—as though the question has not burned through his brain these past few weeks; as though her answer affects his own life not at all. 

As though he has not already imagined the double names engraved on the glass of the office door: 

_C. B. Strike  
R. V. Strike_

(She had been willing to take Matthew’s name; would she take Leda’s?)

They ask each other these sorts of life questions from time to time, over a pint of ice cream when he stays over her place, or a couple of beers if she’s at his. These are the sorts of casual conversations that slip effortlessly into the deeper discussions of two people attempting to plumb the depths of one another. He had had such conversations with Charlotte, but only when they were very young; and Charlotte’s depths could be frightening and dark, whereas even the very darkest parts of Robin are buoyed by her light. 

They’re on the sofa in the tiny living room of her flat. She’s thinking, the ice cream spoon in her mouth. “I don’t know,” she says slowly. “What if—well.” She sticks the spoon upright in the ice cream and sets the pint on the coffee table, pulling her feet up beneath her and turning towards him. “I made such a bad choice with Matthew. What if I make a bad choice again—with my next relationship?”

“Next relationship—Christ, Robin, what d’you think this is?” They’ve been sleeping together for three months now, and together for at least five, although when exactly they crossed the line from friends to something more is fuzzy at best. 

“Well—we haven’t really talked about it.” The tops of her cheeks are tinged with pink, and there’s a hint of a smirk playing around the corners of her lips. She’s caught him out. 

“Minx,” he accuses.

She laughs. “Detective,” she corrects him. 

“Detective,” he agrees. Then, because it needs to be asked: “D’you really think I might turn out no better than Matthew?” The question is vile in his mouth. 

She considers him, her elbow propped up on the back of the sofa, her temple pressed to the heel of her hand. Her eyes are serious but gentle. “You’re very different to Matthew,” she says finally. “It feels different—loving you.”

They haven’t—quite—said the words _I love you_ to one another, not so explicitly. Instead, they talk about love and around it, as though it’s a case that requires a sterile, clinical analysis, a butterfly wing that might dissolve to dust if not treated with the proper glove-handed care. 

“Feels different with you too,” he says. He doesn’t need to clarify that he means Charlotte. He’s wondered, occasionally, if he ever really was in love before, or if perhaps this is the nature of love, that it should feel so different every time. 

She grins into her hand. “You still haven’t actually said this is a relationship, you know.”

“C’mere,” he says. 

She traverses the short distance on the sofa between them and settles herself astride his lap, knees spread wide to accommodate the great bulk of him. Her hands go around his neck, and his hands settle at her hips. “Yeah,” he says. “This is a relationship.”

She bends her head and kisses him, and he acquiesces happily until he remembers his question and pulls his lips reluctantly from hers. “Don’t I get an answer?”

She grins widely, eyes sparkling mischievously. It’s the grin he’s come to think of as Robin’s _wicked grin_ , the grin he is determined will be for him alone forevermore. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

He laughs, and slides his hands under her ass and scoots her closer up against him. “I’m asking if I’m allowed to think about it,” he says. “Someday.”

The wicked grin melts into something softer, gentler. She leans in until her forehead meets his. “Yes.”


End file.
